• Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He obtained his Canadian citizenship in 1989, in part because he felt it would be easier to obtain American citizenship via that path. In 2002, he achieved his goal of becoming a U.S. citizen.
• At age 17, in 1989, Elon Musk moved to Canada to attend Queen’s University and avoid mandatory service in the South African military. He left in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in economics and stayed for a second bachelor’s degree in physics.
After leaving Penn, Elon Musk headed to Stanford University in California to pursue a PhD in energy physics but left the program after two days to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations in the areas of the internet, renewable energy, and outer space.
• Elon Musk’s parents divorced. The nine year old Elon Musk and his younger brother decided to live with his father.
• He was avid reader and would read one book a day.
Musk is the definition of a bookworm. In fact, says Elon, “At one point, I ran out of books to read at the school library and the neighborhood library”. That probably means he read all there was to read, both fiction and non fiction. and completed a six-month BASIC course in just three days.
• At 12 he taught himself how to program and created a video game called Blaster. He sold it for $500
• At 17 he moved to Canada to avoid mandatory service into South African military.
He was quoted as saying : I don’t have issue with serving in the military per se, but serving in South African Army suppressing black people just didn’t seem like a really good way to spend time.
• In 1995 he headed to Stanford University to pursue a PhD in Energy Physics.
• After two days at Stanford, Musk dropped out to launch a software company called Zip2.
• During this time, Musk lived in office and showered at a local YMCA.
• It all paid off when Zip2 was sold to Compaq for 307 million dollars.
He was quoted as saying : I was showering at YMCA and sleeping on the office floor and now, obviously I got a million dollar car and quite a few creature comforts. It is a moment in my life.
• He used the money he made to start X.com, an online financial online payments company. X.com became PayPal and was eventually sold to eBay for $1.5 billion.
• In 2010, he married his college sweetheart Justine.
• They had their first child, Neveda Alexander two years later.
• At ten weeks old Neveda died of sudden infant death syndrome in Justine’s arm.
“He doesn’t do well in the dark places. He’s forward moving. He was very much in mode of the-show-must-go-on.” – Justine said.
• Next, Musk conceived of a plan to send people to Mars and tried to buy Soviet Rockets for that purpose.
• The Russians wanted $8 million for each and Elon thought he could build his own rockets cheaper.
• He founded SpaceX with the goal of making it affordable to colonize Mars.
• Wanting to save humanity from global warming, he invested in a small electric car company called Tesla and helped them develop their first electric car.
• Around the same time Musk came up with the idea for SolarCity a solar energy company. He funded it and put his cousins in charge.
• Tesla kept losing money and SpaceX had three failed launches.
• Between SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity Musk actually ended up going broke. He was borrowing money to pay his rent.
• Around the same time Justine filed for divorce. ( Women though )
• Christmas 2008 Musk got two pieces of good news.
• SpaceX landed a $1.5 billion contract with NASA and Tesla finally found outside investors.
• Elon remarried twice. Both times with actress Talulah Riley. Both times resulting in divorce.
“Elon is working day and night. This is his life and he loves it.”
• A first mission to Mars is set to happen in 2020. Manned missions could start as soon as 2022.

Favorite quote : There are just times when something is important enough you believe in it enough that you do it in spite of fear. – Elon Musk.